I absolutely love the photos that I took of my daughter this fall. Everything about them is great—the look on her face, the outfit, the poses—everything but the lighting. Augh! It just wasn't the right time of day when I took the shots. I really wanted to use one of the shots to frame and give as gifts to the Grandparents this year, so I worked on "fixing" my favorite shot to make it work.

The original (the background turned out grey/blue and my daughter is too dark):

How I fixed this photo (in Photoshop CS):

1. Convert to grayscale: Image/Mode/Grayscale, then convert back to RGB: Image/Mode/RGB.

2. Adjust levels:  Image/Adjustments/Levels (adjust sliders to get desired contrast).




3. Duplicate background image. Set layer to Overlay and adjust Opacity (I like the look of this, makes the whites and little brighter and the blacks a little darker).



4. Flatten image.

5. Adjust contrast in face by making a selection of the desired area and giving that selection a Feather of 20: Select/Feather/20. Then adjust levels:  Image/Adjustments/Levels (adjust sliders to get desired contrast).



6. In a new layer and make a selection of the skirt and give the selection a Feather of 20. Fill the selection with desired color: Edit/Fill/Foreground Color. Set layer to Overlay and adjust Opacity.



7. In a new layer, use Brush tool in Airbrush mode to airbrush blush onto cheeks. I used an opacity of 10%.



8. Sit back and enjoy your Photo Fix! This was my final image after doing a little more tweaking in some of the above steps. What do you think? Do you think the Grandparents will like it?



Amy